I think I ended up as Forbes' business travel blogger because I’m the only Wharton MBA to become a travel writer. I grew up in New England and worked in finance in Tokyo before B-school. Later I moved to Los Angeles to work in the film industry.
In 1998, stunned by my only ever layoff, I began exercising skills (and, let's be frank, pleasures) I’d long left dormant: writing and traveling. A decade and a half later: so far, so good. In addition to Forbes, I’ve been published from Travel+Leisure and the Los Angeles Times to dozens of Lonely Planet titles. I can speak Japanese and French, read Korean menus and embarrass myself in Spanish, Italian and Chinese.
And I continue to polish my business chops with cross-cultural consulting work for companies across the US. In my most traveled year, I logged over 140,000 air miles.
You can see more on my personal blog, wheres-andy-now.com.

Airlines Ground 787 Dreamliner: Should Passengers Be Worried?

A Boeing 787 Dreamliner operated by All Nippon Airways (ANA) sits on the tarmac after an emergency landing in Takamatsu, Japan, on January 16, 2013. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

Following a string of high-profile technical glitches, Japan’s two major airlines, All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines (JAL), have grounded their fleets of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the world’s newest and widely regarded as the most technologically advanced passenger airplane.

The most recent incident happened today when an ANA Dreamliner made an emergency landing in western Japan. The airline said in a statement “the aircraft’s instruments registered a problem related to a battery and crew also detected an unusual smell in the cabin and the cockpit.” News accounts tell of smoke filling the plane and passengers descending from emergency chutes after the plane landed at Takamatsu Airport. The Japan Times newspaper reports several passengers sustaining back pain and minor injuries such as abrasions after using the chutes.

ANA’s CEO apologized for the incident, and both ANA and JAL have grounded their 787 fleets for inspection. Between them the two airlines operate 24 Dreamliners, about half of the 787s currently in operation worldwide. ANA was the world’s first airline to fly the Dreamliner, in autumn 2011.

United Airlines, the only US carrier to operate the 787, said in a statement “We inspected all of our 787 aircraft and they are flying as scheduled.”

The last two months have not been easy for the Dreamliner. Other incidents reported in December and January include a crack in a cockpit window, fuel leaks and problems with brakes and electrical systems, including a battery that caught fire on a JAL 787 at Boston’s Logan Airport, where it sat empty after a flight from Tokyo.

Should travelers be worried? No, says Charles “Les” Westbrooks, Associate Professor of Aeronautical Science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. “In aviation we have learned that accidents are caused by a series of events rather than any one catastrophic event. Because of this we have ‘safety stand downs’ when events are happening in succession so as to break the chain of events which could lead to an accident.”

These sorts of issues, he says, are not uncommon with any new technology, particularly in aviation. “If you will remember, the Airbus 380 had cracks in its wings and exploding engines.” Westbrooks likens issues with these new, sophisticated planes to the ones Apple had after the launch of the IPhone 4.

“I’d ride on it,” he says, “and I’d put my family on the B-787 any day.”

UPDATE (January 16, 2013): This afternoon, the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States issued a directive requiring U.S.-based operators of the 787 Dreamliner to temporarily suspend operations of the aircraft. “Before further flight,” the directive stated, “operators of U.S.-registered, Boeing 787 aircraft must demonstrate to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that the batteries are safe.”

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